Monday, November 14, 2005

Electronic Slavery

I work around a lot of engineers who are "in love" with gadgets and technology. As someone who doesn't own a PDA or a Blackberry, I sit back and laugh every time they get frustrated when one of their gadgets goes haywire.

My "palm pilot" consists of writing information that I want to remember on a yellow sticky pad and sticking it onto my wallet. When I return home at night and pull my wallet out I am immediately reminded of the information.

Many people do not realize that their reliance on cellular phones and other wireless communication devices has turned them into electronic slaves; shackled in the prison of technology. When used in moderation, there are certainly benefits to these devices, however, first we need to determine the difference between convenience, desire, and necessity.

15 Comments:

Tell me about it. I call my cell phone my 'leash'. My refusal to own one the first few years of my marriage was a continual cause for dispute. Now I need one for my job, so I'm stuck. I still try to keep the thing off as much as practical, to my wife's frustration.

I am mixed on most electronic advances - they seem to just take us further into a state of depersonalization and materialism. That said, during emergencies, a cellphone is a tremendous asset, so I can't knock it. I am more than a bit uncomfortable with my dependence on it, though...

Before the toaster, you had to spend a good while preparing your fire, picking a good stick to put the bread on, sitting there with your toast on a stick over the fire, etc.etc. This was time consuming and often led to uneven toasting.

Enter the toaster.

pop in the bread, walk away, *ding* and done.

With this new technology, you can make your toast faster and while its toasting you can do other things. Great!

The flipside- you are now expected to be able to make 10 peices of toast in the time it takes 1, and during all the toasing, you are required to do other things.

I make toast in the oven. Don't own a microwave. Or palm pilot. Or digital camera. I use a 23 year-old 35mm. Takes awesome pictures. Cell phones are good for safety. And I routinely do not answer my regular phone. Hate the phone. We only have one ringer turned on in the entire house just so we don't have to be annoyed by it.

I agree that these are tools to make life easier. Answering the phone when you don't want to doesn't make sense to me.

I've been using my checkbook registers as pocket organizers! But if I was always on the go and needed something more to get my appointments and calls straight, I'd use what was needed, within my means.Users of all electronic devices need to discipline themselves to turn them off when in Shul, etc.

I love my new Pocket PC. Don't you remember what my wallet was like before? Dozens of business cards, post it notes... My desk was a mess with little messages, reminders, my jewish calendar was on top of my english calendar, and I never had access to either when making appointments.

Now I carry all my contacts with me, I have full access to my calendar, and I can even catch up on my medical journals in my spare time.